I’m surprised no one has highlighted this fascinating exchange between NYT editor Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald. It’s lengthy but worth reading, even if you utterly despise one or both men, if only for what it reveals about how two players in an evolving media complex perceive their roles — and each other’s.
A couple of highlights — Greenwald calls out the mainstream media for fetishizing balance here:
A journalist who is petrified of appearing to express any opinions will often steer clear of declarative sentences about what is true, opting instead for a cowardly and unhelpful “here’s-what-both-sides-say-and-I-won’t-resolve-the-conflicts” formulation. That rewards dishonesty on the part of political and corporate officials who know they can rely on “objective” reporters to amplify their falsehoods without challenge (i.e., reporting is reduced to “X says Y” rather than “X says Y and that’s false”).
He cites the way the Times served as cheerleader for the Iraq War and its squeamishness about calling waterboarding “torture,” etc. Much of their exchange centers on the objectivity issue, with Greenwald arguing that everyone is biased, so a pretense of impartiality is dishonest. Keller makes his best (in my opinion) counterargument here:
I believe that impartiality is a worthwhile aspiration in journalism, even if it is not perfectly achieved. I believe that in most cases it gets you closer to the truth, because it imposes a discipline of testing all assumptions, very much including your own. That discipline does not come naturally. I believe journalism that starts from a publicly declared predisposition is less likely to get to the truth, and less likely to be convincing to those who are not already convinced. (Exhibit A: Fox News.) And yes, writers are more likely to manipulate the evidence to support a declared point of view than one that is privately held, because pride is on the line.
There’s also a fairly amusing and somewhat rancorous exchange about David Brooks, in which Greenwald slams Brooks as a dishonest, elitist hack and Keller accuses Greenwald of failing to appreciate Brooks’ elevation of reason over passion.
Nothing in it will change anyone’s mind. But the discussion on media bias and impartiality is interesting, with Greenwald arguing (correctly, in my view) that mainstream outlets like the NYT have an undeclared interest in carrying establishment water and Keller countering (again correctly, in my opinion) that focus on an agenda can lead a writer to select and interpret evidence to support preconceived notions. Neither of those ideas is new, of course, but it’s interesting to read prominent purveyors of both genres discussing the phenomenon candidly.
There’s a lot of complaining around here (with some justice, I think) that every discussion about the surveillance issue devolves into a donnybrook centering on personalities, but the question of motives and intent isn’t irrelevant — not to this issue or any other that requires us to rely at least to some extent on the interpretation of material we can’t directly access or lack the expertise to evaluate properly. Ultimately, in the absence of independently verifiable facts, doesn’t it come down to integrity?
Elizabelle
Good morning Betty.
Now I can brew some coffee to go with a spanking fresh thread.
seabe
I think Glenn’s venture could be a success but I see two ways it could easily fail: inept editors, and GG’s ego. The problem with Glenn’s own writing is that he is dishonest bc he writes like a litigator. He’s not a journalist by training and it shows immensely. He only shows and presents evidence that favors his case, often to the detriment of the story.
What’s so hard about covering news the way Amy Goodman covers it? It’s only liberal in the sense of who she brings on and what issues she chooses to highlight. But her presentation is well executed and very “unbiased”.
Jamey
Forgive me being fixated on a single detail here, but Brooks is everything that’s wrong with the media today. The belief Keller has that David Brooks is the avatar for some elusive sort of “elevation of reason over passion” is demonstrably false.
Brooks just continues the ‘hallowed’ tradition of extremist English peers who promoted radical, socially retrograde agendas in hushed, measured tones. They sounded reasonable while spouting hateful bromides about how defending the status quo–no matter how horrible–was best for the nation at large. Much harm was done because the credulous media and their public mistook a lack of bombast for reason.
Not surprised that Keller defends Brooks, but actually surprised that the former is so intellectually dishonest about doing so.
Botsplainer
@seabe:
He’s not much of a lawyer, either, judging by his track record in his previous “career”.
Judges don’t like polemicist legal writing as a rule, and he just can’t help from going out on that limb and sawing the wrong side.
Betty Cracker
@seabe:
Agreed, and I would cite Maddow as another example of a journalist with a definite point of view who manages to uphold journalistic ethics nonetheless (albeit with a more mainstream, mass-consumption ethos than Democracy Now).
C.V. Danes
There’s a fine line between aggressive investigative reporting and serving as a propagandist; primarily in the underlying motivations as to “exposing the truth.”
The investigative reporter will pursue the truth no matter where it leads. The propagandist is only interested in exposing his or her version of the truth. Greenwald might do well to understand the difference between the two.
Bill E Pilgrim
I read the entire thing last night and I found Bill Keller even more of a ridiculous, muddled-thinking hack than I already thought he was. His clear wounded outrage at anyone doubting the brilliance of David Brooks was laugh-out-loud funny, and just one of many places where his whole pretense at being somehow robotically devoid of emotion in his writing was exposed as ridiculous hypocrisy.
How so many people here can keep finding themselves in agreement with people like Keller and David Brooks in this particular debate and not immediately wonder what’s gone wrong with their brains is one of true mysteries of our day.
MattF
I see a sort of Venn diagram here, with two circles labeled ‘factual argument’ and ‘forensic debate’ on the one hand, and two more circles labeled ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ on the other hand. It’s not hard to give examples of all possible intersections. Personally, I’d rather get the facts right, and I’ll admit (reluctantly) that I’ve been wrong now and then.
dr. bloor
So basically, Keller’s best counter is to build a straw man and knock it silly. Greenwald isn’t arguing that reporters dig into an issue with an agenda, rather, that they honestly report the facts that emerge.
c u n d gulag
Nothing new under the sun, really.
“Yellow journalism” has been with us since before Teddy Roosevelt was polishing his spectacles and oiling his pistols, hoping to get a chance for a role in a war with Cuba.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Now retired, but an intrepid and skillful interviewer who scrupulously maintained journalistic impartiality was C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb.
amk
When and how did brooks’ style of opinionating become journalism or even reporting ?
Bart
Any journalist who finds it more important to be impartial than to seek the truth is not a journalist but a parrot.
Mino
“There’s a lot of complaining around here (with some justice, I think) that every discussion about the surveillance issue devolves into a donnybrook centering on personalities, but the question of motives and intent isn’t irrelevant — not to this issue or any other that requires us to rely at least to some extent on the interpretation of material we can’t directly access or lack the expertise to evaluate properly. Ultimately, in the absence of independently verifiable facts, doesn’t it come down to integrity?”
Uh, maybe in the days of federal civil service. In the days of corporate contracts and corporate tools, not so much. And how much of the outrage is the suspicion that those legislative tools are being wielded for purposes other than security? Remember, it is immoral/illegal for a business to turn down a profit. And corporations can’t go to jail.
Botsplainer
@dr. bloor:
Basically, the whole thing was a circle jerk that turned into a bukkake party.
Keller pretended “reason, dispassionate ethics” while Griftwald pretended “seeks truth wherever it leads”.
Maybe we can drone strike both of them and do the world a favor.
aimai
Not caring (reason) over caring (passion) is a horrific model for human action, let alone for a newspaper columnist writing about the inequities and horrors of a country of 300 million. At any rate the notion that Brooks elevates the discourse by writing “reason/reasonably” without too much ugly passion is absurd. Civility is his shtick. It no more reflects what he actually does, or his real function, than a clown’s oversized top hat reflects his gentility. His function is to decrease passion and moral outrage among the lower classes in order to protect the status quo and the wealth of the upper classes. Its as easy to be a polite liar as it is to be a rude truth teller–but the former is much, much, more profitable.
hildebrand
Hunter Thompson hits the nail on the head:
Betty Cracker
@Bill E Pilgrim: I doubt you’ll find many David Brooks fans at Balloon Juice.
@dr. bloor: I don’t think Keller’s point is false: Of course, everyone claims to follow the facts wherever they lead, but the subjects chosen and evidence presented is filtered through a reporter’s biases. I think Greenwald basically stipulates that as well — his argument is that mainstream outfits that claim impartiality are just hiding their motives.
Ash Can
On the issue of impartiality, both of them miss the real point here (assuming Keller didn’t come right out and say this elsewhere in the article; I don’t have time at the moment to follow the link), although Keller comes much closer to it than Greenwald. And that is, it’s not a statement of opinion to point out that an argument does not have facts and evidence on its side. That, in itself, is an act of reporting facts. Greenwald damages his own cause by insisting that opinion take the place of simply presenting evidence, or that this act of presenting evidence is necessarily motivated by journalist bias. It fucking shouldn’t be, and it’s exactly this that has us banging our heads in frustration around here. Keller’s mealy-mouthed about it (and his regard for Brooks is head-up-his-ass stupid), but when he talks about “a discipline of testing all assumptions, very much including your own,” he’s definitely on the right track.
Chyron HR
Well, the next time I’m being berated by a True Progressive for Mindlessly Worshipping Dear Leader, I’ll remind them that both they and Mr. Greenwald are biased and that their pretense of impartiality is thus dishonest. I’m sure that will resolve the matter handily!
Amir Khalid
Okay, I’ve just read the whole thing, all seven “pages” of it. (Why doesn’t The New York Times website put long stories on a single page? It’s not like they still have to make room to fit it on a single sheet of paper.) I see each guy getting on his own high horse. Greenwald either can’t or won’t see what a nasty piece of work Julian Assange can be, as a man and as a journalist. Keller is rather too much in awe of The NYT’s newspaper-of-record awesomeness, and his defending Bobo’s love of reason over passion is unintentionally funny.
In the end I’m a little more sympathetic to Keller, though not by all that much. Maybe it’s because I was a newspaper guy myself, or maybe because he seems a bit less of a dick than the narcissistic Greenwald.
Betty Cracker
@Ash Can:
Exactly right.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid:
I suspect it’s so they can collect stats on who clicks on through the piece and sell advertising in chunks that way? Otherwise it makes no sense at all and is very annoying for the reader.
different-church-lady
@seabe:
Considering that GG is going to be the editor at the new place, I’d say the odds are high.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
They could collect that data and still offer a single-page option, as many other sites do.
different-church-lady
So basically one guy mistakes his id for the truth, and the other guy has a fetish for the super-ego.
How anyone can say anything intelligent about that dueling wankfest is beyond me. It’s like those horrible YouTube vids of “GIANT CENTIPEDE V. SNAKE” — two creatures that share nothing in common other than being deadly, artificially placed together in a container for perverse entertainment.
gvg
Civility isn’t the same thing as facts or logic. Brooks is civil not factual.
How you make a statement can lead peoples emotions. Fox and other propaganda outlets have a history of stating things in terms of outrage leading people to be outraged over things they shouldn’t be or leading to silly war support for instance. People who know this therefore distrust writers that write with too much passion and therefore don’t like Fox or Greenwald. This may lead to the mistake of thinking Brooks is OK.
A lot of untalented unperceptive journalists have been cluttering up the newpapers in recent decades with articles that don’t inform us of any facts just what someone says. Everytime people yell at them they seem to get LESS able to point out facts to the point that at this time I don’t think most of them even understand what a fact is or why we think they should tell us which ones are fact and which ones are myth.
Both these guys are bad for journalism and neither one knows it. They both bring up good points (that other people thought of) but neither one in my judgement is doing what they think they are. 2 different journalists who were doing what these guys say they are would both actually be useful to us.
LAC
@Amir Khalid: Sadly, 7 wasted pages to come to that conclusion …again.
Gator90
@seabe:
A good litigator doesn’t write dishonestly. She presents her adversary’s best evidence and arguments and confronts them directly.
SarahT
Gee, I wonder who else was a “cheerleader for the Iraq War” ? :
http://thisweekinblackness.com/2013/03/19/the-hypocrisy-of-glenn-greenwald-iraq-war-edition/
ericblair
Keller and his ilk end up ignoring facts and Greenwald and his ilk make them up. Neither of them have the chops to understand what is actually going on and refuse to listen to people who do. The conflict is that Keller’s goal is the preservation of the current power structure and Greenwald’s is the rearrangement of it.
Paul in KY
@Bill E Pilgrim: There’s quite a contingent of eeeewww-Greenwalders in here.
geg6
Yes, which why I think both Keller and Greenwald are dishonest hacks. Spare me both of them and anything they have to say. My disdain is endless for both.
Your nutpicking of the two possibly sensible things either of them have to say in that whole thing doesn’t change my feelings on it one bit. Hell, Sully wanked over this all day yesterday and, not surprisingly, came out of it with Greenwald on top by a hair. What does that tell you about the level of discourse and intelligent conversation there? Sully? Seriously?
Glenn and Bill both ignore the almost always excellent Mother Jones, a publication with a deeply journalistic ethic that also has a partisan ethos. Neither of them are fit to wash David Corn’s week-old dirty underwear.
JasperL
I don’t *like* GG, but just like with politicians the relevant question to me isn’t whether he has many serious flaws, and he does, but what the alternatives are to people like him. And on the front page today we have Josh Marshall at TPM quoted with, “But please, please spare me the shock and surprise that the US spies on foreign leaders, even allies, even close allies.”
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I’ll take GG over journalists who apologize for, or appear to trivialize, what should be outrageous news, that we’ve tapped the phones of friendly foreign leaders and have been doing so for YEARS. It would be ho humming catching a long suspected child molester in the act of molesting a child. If you care about child molesting, (or an NSA that appears to be operating outside any reasonable restraints) you don’t respond with, “Please, please spare me the shock and surprise….”
handsmile
@ericblair:
“…Greenwald and his ilk….” I’m curious to learn who you consider “his ilk” to be. Other than presumably Assange.
Also, I’d be enormously grateful if you could identify those “people who do…understand what is actually going on” regarding allegations of NSA surveillance. Having some trouble finding such authoritative information myself.
? Martin
Greenwald would have a much stronger argument if he had any fucking clue about the topic which he writes so much about. He gets some good facts and then makes such an utter fucking hash of the analysis, and then implies a set of motives that come only from his own imagination.
His only real utility here is as a target to receive the information in the first place. But for the most part, the information is being wasted because he can’t tell the difference between what is realistic and what is science fiction when he starts describing the implications.
chopper, interrupted
@Gator90:
seabe didn’t say that GG writes like a good litigator. truth be told, he wasn’t a particularly successful one.
Matt McIrvin
Point taken, but I reserve the right to scoff at any Republican who thinks Bush didn’t do this. (Trust me, they’re out there.)
different-church-lady
@chopper, interrupted:
And considering some of the people who made up his clientele, we can count that as a blessing.
burnspbesq
The entire discussion is worthless, because it’s based on a category error.
Greenie isn’t a journalist. He’s a polemicist. Nothing wrong with being a polemicist. But Greenie should own up to it, and we should all judge him by the correct set of standards.
different-church-lady
@burnspbesq:
Near as I can tell a huge part of the problem is that GG and his fans are endeavoring very actively to redefine journalism as polemics. (The number of times I saw the idea that “All journalists are biased” over at the GOS was truly scary.) GG has no problem owning up to being a polemicist because in his mind there’s no distinction between polemics and journalism. Indeed, the first merely lends credit to the second in his world construction.
So forget the arguments over his individual charges or facts or factual errors — the deeper danger is that people fall for this “advocacy journalism is the only real kind” bullshit.
Betty Cracker
@? Martin:
There’s truth to that, and to burnspbesq’s observation that GG is a polemicist, but since the legacy media can’t seem to find a workable business model, we’re likely to get more doc dumps from players like Assange and Greenwald than fewer in the future.
cokane
good discussion thanks for linking. Keller totally missed the point on the Brooks criticism, though Greenwald could have been more precise. Overall both sides acquitted themselves well. Unsurprising that they get shat on by BJ commenters though, who are smarter and simply better than most humans.
Paul in KY
@aimai: Well said.
driftglass
“I’m surprised no one has highlighted this fascinating exchange between NYT editor Bill Keller and Glenn Greenwald…”
Well, no one but me.
But to be fair, mostly I just shout at strangers in bus stations.
http://driftglass.blogspot.com/2013/10/fundraiser-day-two-uncritical.html
fuckwit
Neither of those fuckers has any integrity as far as I’m concerned. Fuck them both.
Omnes Omnibus
@driftglass:
That was you?
Betty Cracker
@driftglass: I loved this bit from your excellent review of the exchange:
Sums up my problems with GG’s reportage exactly.
tk
@aimai: fukin A right.
The Raven on the Hill
Surely impartiality does not mean ignoring facts, whatever they are known to be?
“Opinions differ on shape of earth” is not honest reporting, no matter how much Keller says it. Neither is “listen only to the facts that support my side.” And “waterboarding is not really torture” and “genocide is OK, if it’s people we don’t like” are contemptible.
Afterthought: it is not so much that I think GG is perfect in these matters, but he is more right than wrong. Brooks is the example here: he’s a partisan hack with little respect for truth and little ability to admit he is wrong, and defending his work as valid opinion journalism is to say that propaganda is valid journalism.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Except it left out one more scenario: “Y” is happening, but I’m going to say it’s “X” and it is wrong and anyone who disagrees with me to the slightest degree is a drooling stooge of fascism.”
El Cid
One problem with such exchanges — invaluable as occasional truths peeking through may be — is that scions such as Keller are well-trained in spouting what they’re supposed to say about what an idealized journalism should do; it’s what they do which matters.
And people reading the discussion have to know and find out for themselves whether or not the loftily-spouted aims and guidelines of Keller have any and if so what relation to what actually appears in the New York Times.
It’s all well and good to air commercials about how awesome your company’s policies are about X, for example, but it’s not so great when it turns out you’re actually doing the opposite.
When Exxon / BP air ads on how much they luuuuuurv the environment, it’s called ‘greenwashing’. What is it when major news corporations spout rhetoric about their awesome journalistic standards which they then fail to honor when it’s most crucially important that they do so?
A Humble Lurker
@SarahT:
Was gonna say…kind of rich for Greenwald to be badgering Keller about it. Then again, that is kind of par for the course for Greenwald.
different-church-lady
@SarahT: I’ve seen those passages and monitored that debate numerous times. And every time I see it, I wind up thinking that GG’s entire shtick is, “GWBush betrayed my trust, and now I’m going to make Obama pay for that.”
LongHairedWeirdo
The trouble with trying for impartiality is that people can and will say that they sincerely believe that the earth is flat, because they know you will – must! – report what they said or violate that duty of impartiality. E.g., Republicans started saying Obamacare would destroy the economy, just so that they could excuse shutting down the government and threatening default over it.
Well, I don’t know of any economist who thinks it will destroy the economy. So a *good* reporter says “In spite of the opinions of economists, Ted Cruz insists that Obamacare will destroy the economy; Harry Reid, in accordance with contemporary economic thought, disagrees.”
This isn’t just “good reporting” – it’s vital to our interests. The world is *complicated*, and there’s always some piddling bullshit detail that stretched out of proportion will condemn anything. I’m sure there are *some* people who are seeing 200% premium increases (as I’ve seen claimed), and not getting much benefit (or subsidies) in return.
That sucks. But look at a bigger picture. Are those people seeing a big premium increase now looking at always paying more? Maybe they’ll find that when they hit middle age, they’re likely saving a boatload of money, and, in the end, it’s a good financial deal for them, even though it sucks now. Maybe it’s true that they’re just being hurt, not helped at all – but if the average person is helped, are there *any* major regulations that don’t help some and hurt some others? Is this worse than those kinds of regulations? In what way?
We need reporters to chase these things down, because without this information, they aren’t presenting good information. They might be earning page hits, but so do naked pictures, and we don’t accept *that* in lieu of good reporting. (In addition to, maybe – not in lieu of.)
Ramalama
Keller got schooled as far as I’m concerned. What a load of horse shite.
Keller showed himself to be something I can’t quite name. Not not old school, because old school journalism would have called waterboarding torture. Old school wouldn’t have let Judy Miller ‘report’ on aluminum tubes without actually finding confirmation from another source.